‘Cleopatra’ and the Undoing of Hollywood: How One Film Almost Sunk the Studios

Humphries (Rolling Stones 69) recounts the troubled production of 1963’s Cleopatra in this gossipy book filled with insights into the extravagant final days of Hollywood’s studio system. Originally budgeted at $2 million by 20th Century Fox, the grandiose historical epic ended up costing a whopping $44 million ($320 million today), thanks to an unfinished script, endless delays, and a relocation from London’s rain-soaked Pinewood Studios to sunny Rome after two months of fruitless filming. Humphries devotes much of his account to the scandalous affair between Cleopatra stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, noting how the production’s infamy—which fueled the rise of the paparazzi—was the one factor studio execs hoped would draw in audiences and counteract the production’s bad luck. He places the blame squarely on 20th Century Fox by showing how the growing popularity of TV and a misguided belief in the power of spectacle led executives to risk the studio’s survival on a genre of film that was wearing out its welcome. Some of the book’s points are belabored, and the narrative jumps in time, which may be off-putting to readers.